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James Croney

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Everything posted by James Croney

  1. James Croney
    Well, I would say half contradicted maybe. It does seem to be the case that the depth does not matter "that much" (1ppm@10inches) so I would think that the remaining 3-to-4ppm of DO boost was achieved by surface agitation of some sort. I can also form the thought from the data that airstones may only 'need' to be run at night in a planted or otherwise highly bio-active tank. I wonder what the ill effects of over-oxygenation are... (not that we need to test this too, just thinking) As with most answers, I end up wondering more things. ;-D Again, thanks or the effort.
  2. James Croney
    @DanielAmazing! First, thank you for the time, equipment, and dedication to this experiment. Together, we are stronger. It does indeed look that the depth only accounts for 1.2ppm of DO in this setup. That's great news for me. I believe I can safely have a 'high stoned' tank and not risk my fish suffocating. This enables me to use an airstone in a way that does not create a lot of turbulence in the water, and so is great for imitating a puddle or pond. My duckweed should be happy, as well as the guppies I have in the tank. My feeling is that guppies in general would like a lower flow, but that is probably more based on what I think running in a dress would feel like, what with the big fanny fins and all. As far as my non-scientific experiments go, they seem to agree with your data. My 'high stoned' tank is having none of the oxygen problems that happened before, without the airstone. Would you be able to recommend any donation links I can throw some coffee cash at? Just to keep the wheel spinning. -- in the future, I need to go to home depot and work out some riggings to test airlift pumps. My aquaponics stuff currently is "air lift assisted" with a pond pump, and it really kicks up the head height for me (above 6 feet). I'm not sure how one would actually use an airlift pump in an aquarium, other than maybe extending a sponge filter to the 'near top' of the water surface. I would guess that move water moves into and out-of the sponge when the top tube is closer to the waters surface. Having is lower would cause ejected water to be sucked back in maybe. Ill get something going here when I can get a weekend free from work.
  3. James Croney
    Do you put the cereal in first, or the milk in first?
  4. James Croney
    Gary "The Goldfish" Goldman
  5. James Croney
    I feel like this could do with a good upper and lower text.
  6. James Croney
    Wow! My assumptions were backwards, if these loose-results are pointed towards the truth. I wonder if we will get onto any real secrets here. O.o Let me not get over excited. I'm already excited to see your idea of commitment to proper data. 😄
  7. James Croney
    It certainly seems that the smaller the bubbles the easier the oxygen absorbs. Smaller bubbles having a larger surface area makes sense. I feel like something on the bubbles 'popping' on the surface has an unexpectedly high addition to oxygen as well. Nature has usually come to a very efficient path for energy, Not sure if its for popping bubbles on the surface, just a thought.
  8. James Croney
    @DanielGiven the data above, how do you feel about testing across two known times in a day? Say start the airstone at 9am, and by 12noon read the data. The next day, change the depth and re-read under the same timings. This will also baseline any noise from the amp3 as I assume the light cycle is the same over the daycycle. It may be easier than leveling out the light production. It may be easier than using two tanks, unless that is what you would like. Ultimately, I'm just adding data to the pile here. No hard demands. 😄 Nice python. 😉
  9. James Croney
    I think there is a curve in the maths on water volume for surface agitation's effectiveness at increasing dissolved oxygen. Most fish tanks fall under that curve at ~500gallons would be my uneducated guess. But also, wonder if the waste water treatment plants found bubble aeration better. It could be that they had big surface splashing machines, and of course any bubbling would be better than that. Not sure though. This seems to be an interesting thing that i have never seen in an aquarium. 1kw is a bit high I think LOL "around 2 kgO2/kw": The low speed surface aerator is a device for biology aeration with high efficiency. Those devices are often in steel protected by epoxy coating and generate high torque. The mixing of water volume is excellent. The common power is going from 1 up to 250kw per unit with an efficiency (SOE) around 2 kgO2/kw. Low speed aerator are used mostly for biology plant aeration for water purification. The higher the diameter, the higher the SOE and mixing. Yeah, thinking there is a scale factor here that cuts the number between what would work depending on volume.
  10. James Croney
    Ahh, I didn't know this. That would make sense in the case of the plants using available heat which would increase oxygen when the lights came on. Well, from the position of "things react when they want to" and being endothermic is 'wants' heat to be happy. Photosynthesis apparently wants heat and light to be happy. This is also interesting that the respiration is exothermic. That would lead me to think that it would release some heat and co2 all the time, even at night. I have noticed planted tanks tend to 'stay warmer' at night but always attributed it to the insulating properties of plant matter more than "plants being warm". As with everything... probably a little of both. LOL Stretching my plant brains here.
  11. James Croney
    Oh dear, this is the opposite of what I was hoping was the case. From what I can read on that graph though, it seems at the three-hour mark or so the oxygen levels out, to about 8mg/l in the third hour, more or less stopping the accelerated oxygenation at an hour or so in. This tells me that our tank measurements should be taken about 3to4 hours after we start the airstone. I'm hoping that the smaller volume of water in my 3ish gallon tank will let the numbers line up for the surface bubbling to be ok. So far, all the fish seem to be happy and breathing easy. The other two fish that died before I had an airstone showed signs of being unhappy within a day and a half. So feeling like the current setup with the airstone near the top is at least sufficient for them. @Daniel Given the data above, how do you feel about testing across two known times in a day? Say start the airstone at 9am, and by 12noon read the data. The next day, change the depth and re-read under the same timings. This will also baseline any noise from the amp3 as I assume the light cycle is the same over the daycycle. It may be easier than leveling out the light production. @KBOzzie59 I did watch that video. Lots of insights there! But I didn't catch anything to do with vertical placement of the airstone. I did get a look at a young old sassy. That was funny.
  12. James Croney
    I see the concern yeah, but i think i have a way to make it happier. I did understand that cooler water could hold more oxygen that heated water, and that is probably still the case. I agree that it appears to be the opposite, until the lighting is considered, as you said. Marker Amp_3 is a base for that cycle it seems, which leads me to think that leveling out the lighting would level out the warbles some. If you have a 60 watt bulb, perhaps a 30? I'm unsure of the negative impact of static lighting on fish... But my thinking is if you put in the overall same energy, it can't be too terrible. I have all my tanks outside... so no lights for them unless im working on stuff late lol If I am wrong about the light leveling out, we may get into the plants/fish/tanks/microbes natural day/night cycles with or without lights. It would be very surprising to see if the tank 'sleeping' was the cause. haha That, or I'm sure fancier math than I know could calculate the deviations given the Amp_3 marker. Since we are a few shipping charges into this adventure, do you have any donation links that I should find? Yours or other places you would like to see a donation go to.
  13. James Croney
    Oh man! how did i miss this? Ill watch in a bit when I'm not working. thanks!
  14. James Croney
    @Daniel That looks great to me. I would think that time of day and humidity as well as 'general atmospheric conditions'. So maybe don't take readings on a rainy day i would think. After a reading DO with it at the bottom, move the stone to the top and take a reading once its had enough time to settle out. Maybe the same time next day? If no drop, next-next day? That would be my non-scientist take on it. 😉 If fish were not involved I would be curious to see how low it gets without an airstone and reset the data, but I have already proven to myself that is "too low" for fish so no need there. lol Again, thank you for ... doing this. I didn't expect getting back validated data. 😄
  15. James Croney
    @Coronal Mass Ejection CarlIt has 5 female guppies, soon to be 6 female and one male. Ramshorn snails and pest snails. Bunch of guppy grass and some small duckweed. I do plan on having a "tank full of pretty guppies" on my desk so i do think the oxygen demand will get there sooner or later. What has set me on this adventure, and well, what started me out was that I killed two guppies by not having an air stone in there. I tried maracyn for a while, but after some more reading it was clearly lack of oxygen. (top swimming, sporadic freakouts, and 'dizzy swimming') I thought it was an open enough environment to exchange naturally, and it wasn't. So off to some website online to get my nano airpump that I have been itching for an excuse to get. I would think that the plants may have sucked out the oxygen, but either way, the fish seem much much happier with an airstone. It makes me wonder how the 'classic old school' fish bowls worked. I wonder if the shape of the tank being spherical helps water oxygenate. ... Not asking for a test on that one. 😉
  16. James Croney
    If you would be so kind... that would be awesome and save me a few hundred bucks on a DO meter. 😄 I have a nano usb airpump and a never clog airstone screwed in very tight. If you would test at "near the bottom" which is where I feel most people put it, and contrast those numbers to the stone being placed at about 1 inch under the surface, so that the top of the airstone is 1-inch below the surface. I have attached an image of mine. I feel like if the vertical placement "doesn't matter that much", then it opens up tank possibilities to people who want low flow or want to not disturb the water surface. I did try to neat trick I learned from a video with the plastic soda bottle cap to help divert some surface disturbance, but in a three gallon its almost like a lid. haha
  17. James Croney
    Ive bought myself a 3-something gallon hexagon tank for my desk. I've got myself a nano usb airpump and neverclog airstone, and some other things from somewhere online to help complete the tank. Id like to ask whether an airstone's vertical placement in the tank makes much of a difference for dissolved oxygen. I understand that some lesser amount of oxygen will not dissolve as air bubbles will travel less distance if the airstone is near the surface. My feeling is that "I want all the oxygens I can get omnomnom" but my curiosity has me considering how much I can get away with. If the difference is minor, I might be able to get away with a 'low flow' tank. This most likely would be terrible as the water volume grows, but for a 3 gallon even 2 inches under the surface is a large percent. -- Besides curiosity, i have an accidentally rimless tank that i would love to grow duckweed as my tank lid. The guppies would love that too. The airstone being near the surface doesn't transfer as much force to disturb the water outwards. If the water surface moves too much duckweed gets unhappy. The tank is lightly planted with some guppy grass and some clay pellet substrate. Also has a wondershell in there. Thanks for reading. 🙂
  18. James Croney
    I heard you asking in the youtube chats about nugget. I see that the eye is abnormal. If this is the case, many things can cause it. I recently had some tilapia contract strep b (i think) and it made their eyes bulge out something like that. It could be a whole range of issues, but if it is bacterial then I understand salt is a very good way to help offset it, if bacteria is the main cause. I am not too familiar with the species of fish, but to me it looks thin in the middle. Maybe the fish needs to eat more, or is not eating because it is feeling sick from the eye or otherwise. My fish stopped eating as much when they got whatever made their eyes bulge. Your water parameters dont look abnormal at all from what I have seen other indoor aquariums use. Also, check your water flow and make sure there is either enough or too little. I would not increase it now if the fish is sick and already weak etc. I'm afraid I dont have any direct solutions here... but I hope Ive maybe introduced some ideas to help you on your way with nugget. Good luck, time and nature will help if you let it. 🙂
  19. James Croney
    This is one of the best things about these fish I think! Congratulations! If you keep feeding them, you will have many, many, many more.
  20. James Croney
    Ahh, good looking on the clarity. Ill edit it to be more clear about using the aquarium silicone glue on the inflatable pool top. I replied with a direct message on the rest. 🙂
  21. James Croney
    Serious question... do your tomatoes smell/taste like fish? I fear that maybe my garden plants will become fishy.
  22. James Croney
    I'm tempted to think that condensing the fish into a smaller tank was the trigger more so than even the new water supply. With that said, you are right in that columnaris is everywhere, it is just waiting for unhappy fish to infect. To fix this, I would do your best to give them lots of space away from other fish. Maybe even take out of few plants if they are too tightly packed, leaving enough for cover etc. Take out all the fish that even remotely look like they have columnaris. Once the fish is infected enough to get that 'mushy grey spot' on their body, they pass it to other fish very easily, which is only worsened if they are all stressed from being close together. Alternatively you could consider tank placement. If for example your new tank location gets hit by the sun for a few hours each day, where previously it did not, that would stress the fish out. The sunlight would be fine, but it would increase temperature fluxuations and cause the plants to react faster and so on.
  23. James Croney
    I put mine under a banana tree, in the soil. I just hope my bananas don't taste like fish...
  24. James Croney
    It's my opinion that the degree of resolution is only as important to the extent that it can identify changes over time. You should not fear being 'under accurate' unless you begin to omit data that would help you make a decision or observation. It doesn't matter to me whether I know my PH is 7.5 of 7.53351. It only matters that I can tell if significant change has occurred since the last test or established 'normal' for my setup. The extra numbers are just wasted in that case because PH can be accurately monitored in 0.5 increments and still reveal significant data about water quality/changes. Such a 'low' resolution of accuracy would not be the case for something like ammonia where even a little bit can cause a big change for the water and animals. Generally though, I see test strips as an ideal solution to examining water quality. I don't need to count the grains of sand by the ocean to know I am at the beach. There are good arguments against the reliability of test strips, but none that overcome the effort/cost of other setups for me because I can always dip a second strip if I suspect wrong results.
  25. James Croney
    Getting rid of stringy algae that grows on plants and tank walls: rams horn snails are the coolest because of their color variety and shape. Pond snails are a good second best, although I personally like them less than ramshorn. Cleaning/maintaining the water column: I did clams once, and they are actually the best but are far too sensitive to water changes and die easily... Daphnia are hard to beat and are my best pick. I have to give an honorable mention to the large shrimp with fan-shaped hands that 'grab' stuff out of the water, just for being so cool. Removing detritus and other mucky stuff from the bottom: scuds are amazing for this in combination with detritus worms. Cleaning under gravel: I have no experience with them, but I understand trumpet snails are good for burrowing down into the bottom of gravel and cleaning it.
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